Review The Swallowed Anchor - Wollongong

Great place, sorry about the darkness of the photos. This is a really cool bar and place to eat, lovely vibe, fantastic drinks and tapas and listen to some live music. Initially thought the proved were on the pricey side but the portions are pretty big and just totally on point. Had the pear salad, baked cheese, squid and lamb ribs, everything was divine, even the salad. Squid was one of the most tender I've had, all of the elements of the salad came together so well, lamb was super moreish, could have kept on going back for more. Great selection of drinks, loved the cocktails. Had a single singer-guitarist playing music the whole time, she was fantastic, it would have been worth it just to have her playing. Service was friendly, they get a bit busy though so booking especially for a large group is recommended.

Was the food good? Meh. Was the service good? Bar staff are. Did we wait half an hour for a menu? Yes. It was over an hour and a half to receive 5 entree/side dishes. We ordered 7 and two were already gone by 7pm. I can confidently say I won’t be coming back here or recommending it to others. The portions are tiny and far too expensive. However shout out to the cocktails that just saved the night. We arrived at 7:10pm and left after we ate the last bit of food at 8:50pm. Can’t say we were thrilled in the slightest

Magnificent location and service. Food that is fresh, locally sourced, full of flavour and served with a SMILE 😁😁😁😁. 5/5 and well deserved👌

Absolutely amazing food! Some of the best food I’ve ever eaten, I can’t wait to come back! Food was so amazing I wrote this review before I left! Great location also and wonderful service!! 5 stars all round..

We were seated at 7pm, as walkins, so it was very kind of them to seat us. Unfortunately, we didn't receive a menu for a very long time. But we ordered a couple of cocktails (the bar staff was lovely! Super friendly and made a delicious drink) to wait. Then eventually, we received our menus and immediately placed an order since we were very hungry! This is a tapas style menu, so we ordered six dishes. We were then immediately told they were out of oysters, no problem, we just cancelled our order of them! And then it was 8:40pm. We had watched new patrons enter and leave in the time we sat, getting hungrier. They then, at 8:40pm let us know they were out of arancini balls. We had ordered about an hour ago. Nothing we can do, just wanted to get out of there so we just said it's fine. They brought our dishes out, one by one, tiny portions at weird timings. All in all, terrible experience. Maybe it was because we're in our early twenties, so the manager knew we wouldn't make a fuss, but it was awful. Do not recommend. :(

Excellent customer service from all the floor staff, down to chefs and managers. Food is really tasty, fresh and local. Very happy, will definitely be returning. Thank you for creating such a modern and relaxing environment for all to enjoy.

Great food, great atmosphere and service! The burger was so juicy, the sambousek was full of flavour and the salt and pepper squid was just chefs kiss. 10/10 would recommend to everyone. Will be coming again!

Lovely restaurant! Always such friendly service, and the food couldn’t be better. Great restaurant in an awesome location in the heart of the CBD, can’t ask for anything more! Definitely would recommend 🙌🏻

If this is the kind of food they serve in the navy, SIGN ME UP! Trendy tapas bar in the centre of Wollongong. Love to come to this place where the staff are always accomodating and extremely friendly, the choice of food is outstanding and they have a great range of craft beer. The bar staff are knowledgable and the live music gives this cool little joint an awesome vibe. Hot tip - grab yourself a glass of the shiraz gin and the salt and pepper calamari �

Great service. Great beer selection would like to have more tap selections but over all spoiled for choice and thats exactly what you need with a varied taps menu. Tapas selection was nice especially the prawns... would like to see this menu expand. Live music a great idea but needs to be volume controlled to keep the atmosphere. Will definitely return! and recommend to friends.

My wife and I stopped in for lunch last Thursday. We both ordered from the lunch specails my wife had the pulled pork nachos and I enjoyed the Anchor burger. Service was excellent and we didn't have to wait long, that was excellent as we were both in a hurry. Food was delicious and I had a draft beer to accompany my burger. Would recommend to all my friends.

Hands down the best restaurant I've eaten at in Wollongong. I've been multiple times and the service and food has been 5 star consistently Can't recommend enough!

We just had our wedding reception at The Swallowed Anchor and we can not recommend these guys enough! They were super helpful with any requests and made sure our night ran perfectly! The food was amazing and we have had awesome feedback from our guests! All the staff deserve a special mention as their customer service was spot on! Ryan and Annah thank you so much for everything!!

Had a fantastic beer and lunch combination; the Californian server whose name I didn’t grab and staff member Dave were very accommodating. Fast service with excellent but easy to understand menu. The atmosphere and staff made this an easily recommendation for anyone interested in a causal yet organized approach to Wollongong food. Congratulations.

A huge thanks to the staff at The Swallowed Anchor for hosting our engagement party on Saturday night. The atmosphere was lovely, the food was as delicious as always, the live music was an added bonus and the staff were friendly and accommodating as usual. Many thanks again, from Fran and Pete.

I love this place. Excellent food and friendly service. Signature drinks were fab. If you love bourbon highly recommend Cameron's Compass. Talking to owners Ryan and Ana about their journey was the perfect touch. I will definitely be back.

it was so good - very good - excellent food and service and certainly affordable too - such a great place to go for a lovely night out with friends - the 10 of us all agreed it was a great choice ...

Thank you for an amazing night. And hosting the most important night my wedding night. The food was amazing the service too. I couldnt have asked for a better venue. I recommend it to anyone for birthdays, engagement parties, weddings, christmas parties, a romantic night out for 2, a girls night out or just a nice outing for lunch. Thanks again to everyone who works there. �

Food was great, live music was a nice touch though too loud so we almost had to shout to hear each other. No gluten free dessert option meant we had to go somewhere else for a sweet finish to our evening.

I really enjoy the meals we had , top shelf food friendly service and sampled a couple of custom cocktails as well . I will definitely be back soon

Amazing place for something to eat and a drink!